The blonde princess
by shimmerybabycakes
Summary: Klaroline fluff pieces. Mostly detached pieces that all fall into the same storyline, but I threw in some AU chapters just because. Also features Kalijah, Kennett and multiple Rebekah pairings. Unfinished, but I update frequently, so stay tuned!
1. Breakfast with the Mikaelsons

**Author's Note: I own nothing, Julie Plec owns everything, universe, characters and all. Also, please review and send me any prompts you'd like to see. I have no chronological order for this fic, but most chapters are little puzzle pieces of the same timeline. I'll try to update as often as I possibly can, and I look forward to your reviews.**

* * *

Caroline Forbes stretched languidly, taking a deep breath and letting the fresh morning air fill her lungs. Sighing, she got up from her place on the ground, making a mental note to remind the gardener to cut it soon. Her hands went up the ponytail she had trapped her blonde mane in and pulled the hairband out, only to retie it higher, pulling it tight. After selecting her workout playlist, she was off on her daily run. She ran through the woods behind the Mikaelson Manor, ducking and dodging tree branches and hopping over tree stumps, feeling more energized by the minute. She completed about three and a half miles before she worked up enough of a sweat to justify going home, so she wound back through the thick forestry, smiling to herself as she headed back home.

* * *

Once she arrived, she took off her muddied shoes and set them by the door, yelling to let the others know she was home. With her enhanced vampire hearing, she picked up a sleepy groan from Kol, a dramatic huff from Rebekah, and a hum of acknowledgement from Elijah, all coming from the kitchen. She grinned to herself at their replies and flashed to the shower, ridding herself of all the sweat and grime of her workout.

She padded to the expansive kitchen barefoot, and the sight she found there tugged at her heartstrings. What she had come to think of as her family were sitting around the breakfast table, all various degrees of sleepy. Rebekah's own blonde hair was bunched messily atop the crown of her head, and she was wearing her signature pout with particular gusto today. Elijah was dressed in silk pyjamas with matching pants and a shirt that resembled a suit and she mentally rolled her eyes at his formality. His normally perfectly styled hair was ruffled and his bleary eyes were scanning the newspaper that his plate of fruit lay on. Kol was making no effort at pretending to be awake, his head was cushioned by his folded arms atop the table and he was grumbling something about 'bloody morning people'. Klaus was leaning against the counter with his eyes closed and his hand wrapped around a pot of coffee. He looked so serene that one could mistake him for being asleep, but she knew better. As soon as she dropped a kiss to Elijah's cheek, he spoke up.

"How was your run?" He asked, not moving a muscle except his mouth.

"Good. I think the birds are starting to nest." She informed him, leaning across the counter to kiss him. He hummed in response, and she rolled her eyes at him fondly. "Are you planning on letting that go anytime soon?" She queried, referring to the pot of coffee.

"Just until I no longer wish to toss it at Kol's head for finishing the last cup of tea." He told her, hand tightening around the kettle.

"I'll make you some more. Sit down." She offered, hoping that she could get him to let go of the coffee pot. It had been a gift from Bonnie as a joke, because all of the Originals preferred tea, but it held sentimental value. She figured that was why it's glass shards were not embedded in Kol's skull right now.

"We wouldn't even have these kinds of problems if you lot didn't insist on family breakfasts in the first place," Rebekah complained, picking at her blueberry muffin.

"Bekah, it is important that as a family we have meals together, and I, for one, support Ms Forbes' idea to have breakfast together."

"Caroline, Elijah, we've been over this." Caroline corrected, just as Kol lifted his head to poke his tongue out at his brother.

"How very mature of you, Kol." Elijah quipped.

"Bite me."

"As if. I wouldn't even trust my vampire immunity to protect me from the STDs that are surely crawling all over you," Rebekah retorted.

"And that's why nobody asked you, dear sister." Kol mumbled.

"Oh, hush Kol, we all know the reason you're upset is because the Bennett witch doesn't quite appreciate your mediocre advances," Klaus interjected, finally opening his eyes, and smirking at the look of ire on his little brother's face.

"Children," Caroline muttered, brewing Klaus another cup of tea and wondering how it was possible that she was the youngest in this house.

When she had settled Klaus with a hot, fresh, cup of tea, she sat beside Kol, to his left. Immediately she did, Kol began to fill her plate with the sweetest things on the table, chocolate-filled croissants, a pancake and waffles, the latter of which he doused in maple syrup before spraying a healthy dose of whipped cream in the shape of a smiley face with horns. Caroline gave him a quick smile in gratitude, careful not to linger too long. She had long since learned that Originals were uncomfortable with expressing too much emotion.

* * *

Pretty soon, Caroline's quirky demeanor brightened everybody else up as she began talking about the stirrings of spring. Rebekah interjected with possible outfit options, and finally broke a smile when Caroline offered to shop with her for sundresses. Klaus groaned at the prospect of Caroline being gone for so long but she just gave him a wicked smile and subtly implied that sundresses weren't the only thing she'd shop for. Elijah stopped the conversation right there, discreetly asking whether Katherine would be joining Rebekah and Caroline. Rebekah scrunched up her nose, she and Katherine weren't the best of friends but both girls were close to Caroline, so when all three were together, the baby vampire always ended up playing buffer. Caroline mentioned that she was planning on inviting Katherine and Elijah nodded, flipping a page on his newspaper.

Kol pestered Caroline after that to put in a good word for him with Bonnie because she was still mad at him for his last indiscretion. He had been walking her home from The Grill when a man attempted to grab her ass. Kol had snapped his wrist and broken his shoulder before he could and Bonnie hadn't spoken to him since, because she detested 'unneccessary acts of violence'. Caroline agreed, mentally reminding herself to invite Bonnie out for shopping too.

And so the Originals and their recent blonde addition ate breakfast, chatting and laughing at each other's tales and occasionally tossing food across the table, each member secretly content to be awake at the ungodly hour of 8 am, despite their verbal claims otherwise, because they got to be together and nowhere ever felt more like home than the small wooden table in the middle of their kitchen.


	2. Five years

"Love?"

"Out here,"

"You're missing the party," Klaus told the blonde vision on his balcony sprawled on a lawn chair and looking at the night sky with a glass of champagne dangling from her fingers. She looked beautiful, her red dress splayed around her and highlighting the ivory of her skin.

"And you're missing the view," she retorted easily, turning to grin at him.

"That I am." He agreed, coming to sit beside her and stealing her glass to take a swig. "Why are you out here?"

"It's a gorgeous night out," she replied, rolling her head back against the chair to face the sky again.

"Ah. How about the real reason this time?"

"It's our anniversary. I mean, the party's great, I planned it myself, of course it is, but you know, I just wanted to have a moment to take it all in. Five years isn't as long as it used to be and I just wanted to stop for a second and remember this."

Klaus nodded in assent, knowing what she meant. She didn't want the years to fly by and for everything to become a blur. He knew her well enough to know that she'd like to savour their milestones. Smiling to himself, he reached out a hand to her. Caroline gave him a confused glance, before placing her hand is his and letting him pull her to her feet. He dragged her to him gently, and placed a hand on the exposed skin of her back, letting her wrap an arm around his shoulders.

Together, they swayed to the faint strums of the music from downstairs under the night sky, neither saying a word, both content to just be.


	3. Sam

"Give him back."

"I don't understand why I have to."

"Because he's mine, and you were just babysitting. I gave him to you, so now you have to give him back."

"But he likes me. Surely, he will be distressed if you take him away."

"He'll survive."

"I don't think you're being reasonable."

"Me? I'm the one being unreasonable? You've refused to give my dog back!"

"Because I care about his mental well-being. That certainly doesn't seem to be your concern."

Klaus sighed behind Caroline, folding his arms and leaning against the red Porsche behind him. Caroline was in front of him, arguing with Elijah, her arms waving in frustration. Elijah was standing in the doorway to his home, clutching the white floof that Caroline called a dog to his chest, a disheartened look on his face. Caroline had given him her annoying little pet to look after while he whisked her off to France for a week, but now they were back and she wanted her dog. However, while they were gone, it seems his usually stoic brother had taken quite the liking to the mutt. So here they were, outside where Elijah and the most evasive doppelganger lived, Caroline screaming her lungs out and her cheeks reddening with anger.

Speaking of, Katherine sauntered out of the house then, sliding past Elijah in the doorway and striding to Klaus, mimicking his pose and crossing one long leg over the other.

"I wish Elijah would just give him back," she sighed, tilting her head of brunette curls at the frustrated couple before them.

"Really? I wish he'd keep him. I've been looking for a subtle way to get rid of that thing."

"Ah. Explains why you're not engaging." She commented, booted heel digging into the gravel.

"Why do you hold such ire for the dog?" Klaus questioned, turning to Katherine in curiosity.

"Isn't it obvious?" She retorted, "he rips all of my designer shoes and all Elijah does is coo at him." A look of disgust crossed her face, and Klaus chuckled. Finally someone hated the pet as much as he. "You?"

"He's taken quite a liking to the feel of my ripped canvas between his teeth," he remarked, lips quirking when Caroline took a threatening step forward and Elijah took a defensive one back.

"How long do you think they'll be out here?"

"Until one of them concedes, I suppose."

"And you think that's likely?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Follow me. I have a bottle of scotch older than myself in the basement. I could use a drink in this heat." She offered, kicking off to walk away before stopping when she realised Klaus wasn't moving. Rather, he eyed her suspiciously, and she rolled her eyes.

"It's not poisoned, I assure you. I'll even take the first sip," she added, smirking. Shrugging, Klaus followed Katherine into the house, both of them ignoring their arguing significant others.

Eventually, Caroline and Elijah agreed to split custody of Sam. He would stay with Caroline during the week and Elijah on weekends. And eventually, Klaus and Katherine developed their own tradition. On Fridays, when Caroline would stop by to drop him off, they'd have a drink together, and each was always trying to top the other with the older or finer bottle of scotch, trading stories over the latest items Sam had destroyed in their households, forming somewhat of a friendship of sorts. If you asked, they'd vehemently deny it, but every Friday, they'd sit in the balcony adjoining Elijah's study, and finish off a bottle of scotch together, bonding over the mutual distaste for the dog that brought them together in the first place.


	4. Los Angeles

"I'm not going with you Klaus," Caroline said hesitantly, a slight wince on her face.

Klaus halted his long strides towards the door and cocked his head towards her, not turning around.

"What?" He queried in a deceptively quiet tone.

"Will you please sit down so we can talk about this?" Caroline implored gingerly, gesturing to their expansive bed. He spun around and took on a defensive stance, cerulean eyes making it clear that he wasn't about to heed her request. Sighing, she just began to speak "I can't leave New Orleans right now, Klaus. I'm only in my junior year and I don't want to start taking part-time classes or coursework, it's only my first degree. I want to stick this through, you know? The whole college experience. I think you should go on ahead to LA and I'll catch up with you."

Klaus hadn't moved, hadn't even twitched while she spoke but his eyes flashed angrily and his jaw twitched menacingly. "So this whole time you've sat idly by watching me plan our move and you've stayed silent. Did it never occur to you to inform me that you had no intention of going anywhere with me?" His voice was strained, almost like he was trying to restrain himself from yelling at her. "Answer me!" Well, she said almost.

"Nik,"

"No. Don't you dare 'Nik' me, Caroline. We've been planning this for months! How could you possibly afford to be so selfish?"

"Selfish? You want me to drop my life and follow you across the country, again."

"Again? So that's what this whole debacle is about, then. You regret coming here, to me, to New Orleans." He concluded.

"I didn't say that, Klaus. Stop it." Caroline warned.

"Stop what, sweetheart? Speaking the truth? You're always pestering me with your pesky morals so let's have at it shall we? You regret coming here. That's why you always find something meaningless to do to avoid me, isn't it? The degree, the galas, the running errands with Elijah and Rebekah, the way you tag along with my minions, you'll do anything to avoid me so why don't you just admit it? You don't love me." He stepped closer to her with every word he spoke, delivering blow after blow to her until he was right in front of her, close enough for her chest to brush up against his. He stared her down, nose flared and insecurities bared, open and naked for her to see and fearing the worst of what would come out of her mouth next. He saw the hurt swirl in her orbs before the fury took over and she shoved him harshly away.

"Meaningless? That was a low blow, Klaus. You know I always wanted to go to school, vampire or not. I'm not going to school to spite you, you narcissistic ass, I'm doing it to build myself up. And the galas? They're so your precious kingdom sees something other than a heartless monster when they look at you. To inspire loyalty through love, not fear, because Lord knows your methods have worked out disastrously in the past. I run errands with your siblings because unlike you, I actually appreciate them and like spending time with them and hey, it gives me something to do while you're off torturing witches and whatnot, which by the way is totally uncalled for because in case you forgot, the last witch you tortured was Bonnie's aunt . Oh and your minions? They're people too, who are actually quite fun to hang out with but you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?" Caroline was raging now, her hands shaking from pure anger at the nerve of this man to assume that she did anything less than absolutely adore him. What a complete idiot. "Enjoy your trip to LA, Klaus," she huffed, turning to go and either rant to Rebekah or drink her weight in tequila. Whichever happened first.

With every word, the betrayal and hurt seeped out of Klaus, slowly being replaced by guilt and and an overwhelming urge to pull the furious blonde into his arms and tell her how sorry he was. "Caroline," he started, moving to block her path.

Her eyes shot up to his and she replied hotly, "don't 'Caroline' me, Klaus."

"I deserve that," he conceded, reaching for her arm.

"You think?" She countered, avoiding his grip. Klaus sighed, instead wrapping his arms around her waist and backing them towards the bed. She fought him, though it was futile, hybrid strength and all working against her efforts. Caroline eventually stopped thumping against his chest and tried for his firm forearms, swatting and pinching at whatever she could get ahold of. He used her distraction to sit down and position her on his lap, so she was straddling him.

"Love, I am sorry for my unfair assumptions and for doubting you. I will try to not do it again, but I make no promises. I am prone to thinking that the ones I love will eventually leave me." The sincerity of his tone made her look up from his arms and the rage drained out of her immediately at the look on his face.

"Oh, Klaus," she sighed, draping her arms over his shoulders, "I won't leave you. Not now, not ever. And besides, if I was going to leave you, I'd at least do something dramatic like fake my own death so you wouldn't come after me or get Bonnie to do one of those spells that masks-"

"Hey!" He interrupted, jostling her a little in his lap, "I thought you were trying to make me feel better."

"Right," Caroline frowned, concentrating on him, "my point is, babe, I'm not leaving you. I am just doing what any modern twenty-first century woman is and putting my education first. I''ll come to LA in the summer to check on the expansion and to work on my tan and we'll get a place in Beverly Hills."

"I'm sorry for calling your pursuit of a degree meaningless," Klaus apologized sheepishly.

"Forgiven." She chirped, dropping a kiss to his cheek before hauling herself off of him and flouncing to his suitcase, no doubt to repack his clothes in a way that her OCD nature could live with and he watched her, shaking his head and chuckling when she tossed a pair of his worn jeans over her shoulder. He really did love her.


	5. Blunette

Rebekah held back a laugh and tried to school her features into a neutral expression, eyes fixed on Caroline's hair. Bored, she had asked her fellow blonde for permission to dye her hair, promising that she would use removable dye. Caroline, always bubbly and eager to try new things, had acquiesced, and now here they were. Rebekah had taken the towel off Caroline's hair, and her wet and very, very blue hair was tumbling down her back, deliberately out of her sight.

"What is it, Beks?" Caroline chirped, a frown marring her forehead at Rebekah's reaction. "Do I look good as a redhead?" Right. Rebekah had told her she was going to dye it a dark shade of red, almost auburn, but not quite. However, somehow she'd gotten the bottles mixed up and now she had to figure out a way to wash it out before the baby vampire got a glimpse of it.

"Lovely, actually. Makes your freckles really pop." The youngest Original lied through her teeth.

"Thanks, Bekah. You know, nobody ever notices them, I mean I know they're more common with darker hair but-"

"Fucking hell, what happened to you, darling?" Kol exclaimed, strolling into Rebekah's room.

"Rebekah dyed it red. What do you think?" Caroline asked, giving him a beaming smile.

"Oh Rebekah most certainly did not-"

"Do a good enough job of making the colour really stand out. Perhaps we should wash it off and visit a hairdresser to do it properly? I know the perfect woman for it." Rebekah interjected, shooting her brother a death glare in warning.

"I want to get more opinions first. I mean, I haven't even seen it myself. Besides, I know you did good, Bekah, you always do when it comes to these things." Caroline encouraged kindly. Rebekah answered with a small smile in gratitude.

"Rebekah, have you seen Niklaus? I could have sworn I saw-" Elijah came in next, gaze drifting from his phone to Caroline and stopping dead in his tracks. "Miss Forbes. What a... creative choice." He stammered, too polite to tell her she resembled those cartoons Katherine lazily watched sometimes. What were they called, Spurfs?

"Aw, thanks 'Lijah. You think Klaus will like it?" The blue in her eyes shone hopefully, and he didn't have the heart to disappoint her.

"Well, I have yet to witness a day when my brother doesn't adore anything you do." Elijah answered carefully. She awarded him a winning smile and he left before he got even more entangled in whatever mess that was, much to the amusement of Kol, who snickered as he exited.

Caroline spun in her chair idly, waiting for permission from Rebekah to see her hair in the mirror but the blonde had had an indiscernible look on her face ever since she unveiled her, and she was currently staring at her as if she had a horn growing out of her head, so she figured it would be a long wait. She hummed to herself, lolling her head back and getting comfortable when she heard light footsteps approach the doorway.

"Bonnie!" Caroline jumped out of her seat, dropping the towel wrapped around her shoulders and racing across the room to envelop the witch in a hug. Except, when her hair flew in front of her from the impact, it was blue. Like blue blue. It couldn't have been more than two shades darker than the colour of her own eyes and she pulled away from Bonnie, horrified. Stalking to the mirror on the far wall of Rebekah's room, she let out a horrified shriek when she witnessed the full glory of her hair.

"Rebekah! My hair is blue! And not the kind of blue that's like, crazy but strangely working. It's like stupid blue. Like 'weren't you paying attention to the mirror before you left the salon' blue. I'm going to kill you!" The blue-haired girl lunged at Rebekah, only held back by a laughing Kol and a smirking Bonnie.

"I'll fix it," Rebekah offered, kind of scared by the look in her friend's eye.

"You won't be alive for that much longer!" Caroline threatened, trying to hoist herself over Kol's shoulder.

Downstairs, far from all the ruckus, Katherine passed Klaus the whisky, sighing exaggeratedly.

"Are you going to get that?" She questioned, pointing upwards.

"No," Klaus answered, pouring himself a healthy helping. He knew better than to interfere in a tiff between his sister and girlfriend. "And stop stalling. It's your turn."

Katherine shrugged and added a few letters to the board, scoring a triple letter score. Living with family really was a struggle.


	6. Girl's Trip

Bonnie Bennett sighed in content, pushing her sunglasses up her nose before shifting in her lawn chair to lie on her side. Then, she saw him on the seat next to hers, sporting his own pair of sunglasses, except his were pushed into his short, brown hair and looked about five times more expensive than hers. That infuriated her even more. He didn't seem to notice her heated glare, busying himself with pretending to read Katherine's Vogue magazine, _upside down_. Frowning, Bonnie stretched out a caramel-toned leg to kick him in the shin.

"What the hell are you doing here, Kol?"

"I heard there was a girl's trip and decided I'd drop by and surprise you lot."

"You weren't invited,"

"Yes, that was quite rude on your part but I'll forgive it if you help me with something." Kol offered, brilliant smile in place, turning to rifle through Katherine's beach bag and pulling out a bottle of sunscreen. "I just can't seem to reach my back. Be a darling and help me out?" His exaggerated damsel-in-distress facial expression almost made her burst out laughing but she narrowed her emerald eyes behind her shades and took the bottle from him, if only so she could have an excuse to run her hands down his smooth, muscular back. He was a douche, but damn it, he was a hot douche. Those were the worst.

"You look absolutely ravishing in that swimsuit, by the way," he remarked casually, swinging across his chair so he sat with his back facing her and thank heavens that he did because the witch behind him blushed profusely. She was wearing a red bikini with tiny strings tied high up on her hips, enunciating her figure. Bonnie's charm bracelet jingled noisily when she shook the bottle, pouring a generous amount onto her open palm and spreading it across Kol's shoulder blades.

The Original leaned back subconsciously, chasing the soft touch of her hands. She started with his shoulders blades but dipped lower eventually, kneading the muscles along his spine and eliciting little groans of appreciation from him.

* * *

Katherine watched the scene near the pool from the beach house, a look of curiosity flirting across her features. Bonnie hated Kol. Oh well, Caroline once hated Klaus but the blonde was singing a very different tune now, she could still see her friend facetiming the hybrid in her periphery. Nevertheless, the Bulgarian beauty was not one to get in the way of whatever was going on outside, so she turned on her flip-flop clad heel and headed for the hotel sauna instead. Maybe she'd even call Elijah later on. Unlike her young friends, she didn't feel the need to constantly be in contact with her significant other. A call here and there, a text or two perhaps to confirm that they had safely landed but other than that, she refrained from communicating with Elijah when she was away. It seemed strange and clingy to her and this way, she was proving to that little part of herself that abhorred the idea of attachments that she could survive without him.

Rebekah was at the hotel bar, perched on a high stool and sipping a margarita. She looked unattainable even then, hair compiled into a stylishly messy up-do, Prada bag hanging from the back of her chair and donning an elegant white sundress whose hem just barely grazed the top of her thigh. Matt was probably at work right now at the Grill, she mentally calculated the time difference while staring idly at the picture of the quarterback with his eyes crossed as her lock screen.

"Ugh, you too?" Katherine quipped, pulling herself onto the bar stool beside Rebekah's. She had been on her way to the spa but had spotted a flash of blonde by the bar and decided to get herself some company.

"What is it now, Petrova?" Rebekah retorted, not even looking up at her companion.

"You're fussing all over your boyfriend. I mean, we're on vacation. It's a girl's trip. Can we please do something other than obsess over what they're doing?" Katherine implored, raising a hand to beckon the bartender. Rebekah had been about to give the brunette a sarcastic reply but thought about it and conceded. They were here to have fun. It was their holiday. She could take a break from texting Matt to have fun. Besides, she figured, now was as good a time as any to get to know the girl her stoic brother seemed infatuated with.

"What did you have in mind?"

* * *

Turns out what Katherine had in mind was to drag them all, including Kol, shopping on the streets of Jamaica. Katherine seemed to buy anything with a Jamaican flag on it, beaded bracelets, bandannas, lassos, you name it, while Bonnie bought souvenirs like Blue Mountain coffee and oil paintings that caught her eye. At night, they hit a swanky club, Privilege, Caroline thought it was called, and danced until their feet hurt. Rebekah suggested they try white rum, a popular local drink that was usually mixed into cocktails. A terrible idea, because it's potency affected even the vampires, leaving them staggering back to their private villa in the hotel drunk, Kol harmonizing a tune Caroline was singing with his arm thrown around the Bennett witch who in her inebriated state, didn't object. Katherine was beside Rebekah, the both of them in a fit of giggles over something the rest couldn't be bothered to understand. All in all, they were a merry little bunch, if only a bit wasted.

The morning after was brutal. All of them put on sunglasses and stayed indoors, nursing throbbing headaches. Currently, they were all sprawled out in the living room, in different states of disarray. Caroline was on the floor, lying flat with her legs crossed and an ice bag resting on her forehead, matting her blonde hair. Rebekah chose the biggest couch for herself, only Katherine deemed that unfair and so they shared it, the latter sat straight with her feet on the recliner, while the blonde lay across the couch, her feet on Katherine's lap and her arms crossed over her head, fast asleep. Kol took residence on a plush rocking chair only meant to seat one with Bonnie curled up against him "for comfort" she had defended, when she climbed into his seat with him and silenced his smug look with a glare.

The rest of the 'girl's trip' went off without a hitch. Bonnie and Kol grew significantly closer, Rebekah and Katherine formed a friendship of sorts, and Caroline took lots of aesthetic pictures that she flooded her Instagram with. Everyone was satisfied when they boarded the Mikaelson's private jet to head home and as they flew over the Caribbean, Caroline took one last picture, mentally making a note to add it to the secret scrapbook she kept of the people around her, her family.


	7. Snowed In

Its intimate, cosy and so very homey. The whole family is snowed into the cabin in Aspen, and even though they are vampires and could leave at anytime, this was kind of nice. It almost feels normal for them to be burrowed under fluffy blankets on the seats in the living room, idly talking about nothing. Somehow, it makes sense for the crackle of the chips Katherine chews on to be the background noise to the story Kol is telling of the trip he and Rebekah took to Madagascar. The fire burns quietly in the fireplace, slowly dying but every time it threatens to, Bonnie whispers a Latin word and it lights up with gusto. They've been basking in each other's company for a few hours now, long enough for Caroline to have taken a nap and stirred back to consciousness nestled in Klaus' chest. Elijah had tried to read _Dear Ijeawele_ in the first few hours of their captivity but had long since given up and placed the book on the coffee table, marking his page with a well-worn bookmark, instead choosing to join the lazy conversation and steal crisps from Katherine's lap. Marcel hummed the tune to _Stand By Me_ absently, wrapping a curl of Rebekah's hair around his forefinger and watching it unfurl and fall back to her head on his knee. Said blonde sighs in content, pulling her duvet up to her chin.

This is true peace, Klaus thinks to himself. His own significant other moves to throw her funny socked-feet in his lap and stretch her cramped muscles out on the couch behind her. He can tell she's on the verge of another nap but she fights it off in a futile attempt to hear Marcel's rendition of her favourite sixties song. The winter rages outside, turning the sky into a bleary gray and the ground to a perfect coat of white. Kol finishes his story, fond smile on his youthful face when he glances over to his slumbering sister. Bonnie feels rather than hears his chuckle at Elijah's comment about how Rebekah's human talent to fall asleep quickly and soundly and just about anywhere followed her into vampirism. Soon enough, only Bonnie, Klaus, Elijah and Katherine are awake. They play poker on the coffee table between them, but Bonnie has to hand Klaus her cards to put down because Kol's heavy form has taken residence on her legs and she cannot move very far. Elijah wins, predictably, because he wins every game they play, even monopoly. He's an extraordinary strategist.

Fast forward a few hours and Klaus has joined the ever-growing group of sleeping supernaturals in the group. Elijah too, so that leaves Bonnie and Katherine. The latter is sprawled on the carpeted floor, twiddling the strings at the waist of her sweatpants and the former is running her hands through Kol's hair, messing it up as much as she can and as gently as possible before smoothing it back into place.

"Bon?" Katherine calls lowly.

"Hm?" The witch responds automatically.

"Do the pillow thing please?"

At that request, Bonnie lets a small smile tug at her lips. Even at her age, Katherine was still enamored by the simpler things in life and that made her feel a sudden burst of fondness for the doppelganger. Bonnie reached for a nearby throw pillow and slit it open, spreading the feathers beside her. She didn't even have to lift her hands, just focused her emerald eyes on them and they floated in the air. Katherine reached up to catch one but when she released its soft tendrils it drifted back up, weightless. Amused by the look of wonder in her chocolate eyes, Bonnie ripped another pillow so the feathers filled a good amount of the space above them and twirled a finger so they collected above Katherine's torso and spun in a white tornado before her. The girl on the floor giggled and Bonnie opened her palm so the feathers went back to floating in no particular order around the room.

"Thank you," Katherine voiced, the trace of a laugh still coloring her voice. She sometimes had trouble sleeping- the consequence of half a millennium spent on the run- and it was during those times when she couldn't bring herself to drift off when she was most vulnerable, most like the girl who ran among fields of lilies and swam in waterfalls in 1400s Bulgaria. Elijah was usually very patient with her, and held her in his protective arms until she fell asleep because it made her feel safe, but he had blacked out on the sofa, unknowingly occupying most of it, and he looked so adorable with his coiffed hair mussed and his stern features peaceful and boyish that she didn't wake him up. She also thought he deserved a break from playing her therapist for a night. So she lay there, twisting her drawstrings and watching the snowy feathers dance above her, happy to have the company of the witch she was beginning to see as family.

"Kat?" Bonnie inquired, noticing the sleepy blink of her friend's eyes. She knew all about Katherine's problem but rarely ever asked after it, knowing she hated to talk about what she perceived as her weaknesses.

"I'm fine. One night of insomnia won't kill me," she mused with a hint of melancholy.

"_Dormitabis_," Bonnie replied, blowing a slow gust of air upwards. The feathers began to descend almost imperceptibly but the lower they came, the sleepier Katherine got. She felt the lull of rest pull her in, but it wasn't scary like it used to be. It was calm and soothing, like a nap in the afternoon sun after a swim. The darkness pulled her in steadily and by the time the last feather hit the floor beside her feet, she was the perfect image of a sleeping beauty. Bonnie sighed in content, spelling two mink blankets over her friend and tugging gently on Kol's shoulder for him to get up. He sat up groggily, blinking at her blearily and she tried to tame the pace of her heart because she knew he could hear it. She maneuvered her body fully onto the couch they shared and waited for him to do the same behind her and tuck them in before drifting off to sleep herself, the last thought on her mind that maybe the snow days she detested as a child weren't so bad after all.


	8. New York, New York

Caroline held out her last note, closing her eyes in bliss, and the small crowd exploded in rapturous applause. This was where she belonged, that much was clear. Her skin was tinged a lovely shade of pink from the warm stage lights and her blonde hair glowed as she blew kisses to the people below her. She leaned over to give her band hugs and then got off the stage, immediately making a beeline for the bar. She had been singing at a swanky lounge in New York on a chilly Thursday night after class. They had karaoke nights that didn't start until eight, but she knew the barkeep, so he let her on a little early.

"The usual?" Matt asked, ignoring a gorgeous blonde with a high pony and a diamond choker on the other end of the bar to serve Caroline first, even though aforementioned girl was there before her.

"What would I do without you?" Caroline responded, standing on her stool to lean across the counter and kiss his cheek. He gave her a flattered smile and made his way over to his other customer to take her order. Caroline nursed the cosmo he had prepared for her absentmindedly, her mind drifting off to the workload she had waiting for her back at home. She was a journalism major at NYU with a theatre minor and was in her senior year. She couldn't wait to be done, especially since she had just scored a prestigious internship with the _Times_.

Klaus strolled into the lounge still a little irked that his sister had dragged him away from his studio on a cold January night to go to some lounge. He was a senior at the School of Visual Arts and was currently working on his last major project before graduation. His sister, Rebekah, used to go to college in New York too, Julliard in fact, because she had always had such a natural talent for ballet, but had deferred in the previous year to fulfill a modeling contract she had secured. He was extremely proud of her for it, unlike their uptight family, because she was actually good at it and was making quite the name for herself while simultaneously earning enough to put any other twenty-year old to shame. Klaus also easily related to her desire to start making her own money so young, having started earning his own income at eighteen. Now he was making almost as much as her, displaying his work at a fancy art gallery in the Upper East Side owned by a woman who reminded him of his grandmother. It was only a couple of blocks down from where he lived, and his work attracted her clientele so much so that he became one of her most featured artists.

Rebekah and Klaus had walked in just as Caroline's performance began, and he was mesmerized by the beautiful singer. She had an ease he was jealous of and an air of bubbly cheeriness that he wanted so very much to get lost in. However, when she descended down the stairs to the stage, she had gone to the bar and had been rather friendly with the bartender, so he assumed that they were together. Shame, he mused, watching her cross her legs and sip her drink idly. Bored because Rebekah had abandoned him to make moon eyes at said bartender, he decided to go talk to the blonde anyway, a little conversation never hurt anybody.

"Lovely voice, love,"

"Thanks."

"Mind if I sit?"

"Free country,"

"So I keep hearing. What's your name, sweetheart?"

"No."

"Pardon me?"

"No, I won't tell you my name, but I'll give you a hint, bucko. It's not 'love' or 'sweetheart', and no, I don't want you to buy me a drink, thanks for the offer. Yes, I am a buzzkill, no I don't want to get out of here and it is none of your damn business if I have a boyfriend or not. Are we done?" She rattled, quirking a brow at him when she finished.

"You New Yorkers are so brittle. And by the way, love, I wasn't going to buy you a drink. How presumptuous of you to assume I would." He joked, smirking at her playfully.

"I'm not a New Yorker."

"Oh?"

"I'm from a tiny little town called Mystic Falls, in Virginia."

"From the South, then? What a scandal it would be if your people back home knew of your utter lack of manners." He teased.

"Shut up," she retorted, finally cracking a smile.

They ended up liking each other well enough. Caroline couldn't get enough of his accent and those darned dimples and Klaus was certain he could spend all night watching her laugh. They sat there almost all night, trading secrets and stories over her drinks. He told her about his siblings, about the art gallery, his mansion back home, everything. She drew the dimples out of his cheeks by telling him about her strict sheriff mom's run-ins with her bad boy high school boyfriend, her best friends, her dad and Stephen, the story behind the star tattoo on her foot and her all-consuming love for Broadway. He found out early on that she was not, in fact, dating Matt but was quite enjoying the life of a single woman in the Big Apple. The pretty blonde with the choker was his sister Rebekah, who she vaguely recognised from a handful of covers of magazines she didn't have the time to read anymore.

* * *

They both went home more than a little tipsy, but alone. And when Caroline rolled over in the morning, head pounding to remind her exactly how many cosmos she had consumed, she smiled fondly at the memory of Klaus, the blonde artist with raspberry lips and an accent worth dying for. Klaus woke up significantly later, but with just as bad of a headache. However, he was treated to a text from Caroline, the beautiful singer from the lounge with a journalism major and a theatre minor with a knack for calling him out on his bullshit.

_I'm waiving the three-day rule to invite you for a cup of coffee._

_Ply me with alcohol and then offer me reprieve. You truly have no shame, sweetheart._

_Offer expires in 3...2...1_

_When and where?_

And so they both happily played hooky that day, and spent the day holed up in a coffee shop in Manhattan with dim lighting and jazz music strumming along in the background. They had been there a good few hours, ordering snacks and more coffee so they wouldn't get kicked out for idling. Caroline sat cross-legged in her side of the booth, chewing on bread sticks and Klaus propped his head on his palm, watching her with amusement.

"Where do you see yourself living out your days when you're done with school? Like, where do you want to call home?"

"New Orleans. Definitely." Klaus answered, stealing one of her bread sticks.

"Wow," she muttered, widening her eyes at him as if he had just said he wanted to live on the moon.

"You said no judgment." He complained.

"And I'm not judging. I just... I can't see myself living anywhere but here. I mean the culture, the way the streets pulse beneath your feet, Broadway, 5th Avenue, the hidden little gems, every cheesy thing about New York just makes me fall in love just a little bit more. Now _you're_ judging." Caroline pouted.

"I'm not, I swear it. I just love watching you talk about the things you love. Cheesy though they may be," he teased.

"You're lucky I like you. And that I'm not willing to waste food by throwing it at you." She warned, waving a bread stick at him.

"I like you too." Klaus murmured seriously, blue eyes searching out blue. Caroline held his gaze, smiling softly. Dreams really did come true in New York.


	9. She

**Author's Note: I had a lot of fun writing this one, and there's definitely going to be a part two. Apologies for Klaus' behaviour in this chapter. I promise to make it up to you xx**

* * *

Caroline swung open the door with her practiced Miss Mystic smile in place, but it quickly dropped into a confused frown when she was met with empty space. Puzzled, she leaned out of the doorway to look around when she had a gurgle. Glancing down, her eyes befell a wicker basket that bore a baby swaddled carefully in a white blanket. She was certainly no expert on babies, but if she had to guess, she'd say this one was no older than four months. Looking around again to make sure no one was around, she picked up the baby gingerly, and gave the basket a light kick so it would slide into the foyer.

"Guys? Come down here for a second," she called, bouncing the baby gently in her arms. It was sleepy, but not quite asleep yet, if the slow blink of its gigantic green eyes was anything to go by. Oh jeez, was it mean of her to refer to it as it? They seriously had to find its parents.

Klaus was the first one down, having flashed there from his study. Now, Caroline had watched this man battle the greatest witches on the planet, fight off a dozen werewolves and even face-off with Silas but she had never seen him look more horrified.

"What in the bloody hell are you doing with that- that _thing_?" He asked her, pointing at the child in her arms in accusation.

"Klaus relax, it's just a baby," She replied, rolling her eyes at his expression. You would think that after a thousand years he would know how to handle a baby.

"Is my vampirism malfunctioning or did I just hear you say you had a- _oh_," Rebekah emerged, tying the sash of her wrap-around shirt. Aside from initial surprise, the only female Mikaelson was alright, even coming closer to examine the child."Where did you find it?" She asked, reaching out a manicured finger to trace the baby's open palm.

"The doorstep. There was nobody there, just this little pile of cuteness in a basket," Caroline responded, warming up to the baby already. She jerked her head in the direction of the abandoned basket in explanation.

"Was there a note?" Rebekah queried, already striding towards the basket.

"I didn't check actually," Caroline frowned, shifting the baby in her arms. Rebekah picked up a piece of paper marked with blank ink in perfect calligraphy and read aloud.

_Dear Mikaelsons, present residing company included,_

_Consider this karma._

There was a sudden guffaw from Kol, who appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, beside a stunned Elijah.

"Niklaus-"

"No, Elijah, before you use that condescending tone on me, I did not piss off any witches. At least not in the recent past." He smirked, mischievously.

"Gee, are you sure?" Chirped Bonnie, from her perch on the stairs. She only got a threatening glare from Klaus, which she answered with a slight narrow of her emerald orbs, a silent reminder that she could fry his brain at will.

"Okay so if its not the witches, who else would give us a baby out of revenge?" Caroline asked, half out of curiosity and half because she wanted to dissipate the simmering tension between her boyfriend and best friend.

"Does it matter?" Growled Klaus, "We're giving it back."

"To who?" Rebekah retorted defensively.

"Aren't there thousands of insipid humans in desperate need of a child?" Klaus shot back, completely unwilling to share a roof with _it_.

"Yeah, but the kid might not even be human," Bonnie muses aloud. All the heads in the room swivel to her in shock and she scoffs. "What? Haven't any of you thought about that?" As if choreographed, they all turn to the baby, expecting to see some sort of sign that it was was supernatural but all they got was a small sigh and an uncomfortable wiggle.

"He's probably hungry. Give him to me," Rebekah offers, stretching her arms out to receive the baby. Caroline hands what her friend has deemed a _he_ to her, and pockets, suddenly not knowing what to do with her hands when his warmth left them.

"Do we even have baby food?" Kol asks his sister, popping a lollipop out of his reddened mouth.

"He's too young for it. He needs formula milk." Rebekah says, positioning the baby to settle on one hip while searching for her car keys. "Witch, you're up." She delegates, throwing her keys to a stupefied Bonnie.

"Why me?"

"Must I always be the smartest one in the room?" The Original lets out a long-suffering sigh. "Caroline over here needs to calm Nik down, Elijah would just slow me down complaining about wrinkles and spit-up on his suit and I don't particularly feel like giving Kol an impromptu how-to-hold-a-baby lesson. So that leaves you."

Bonnie shrugs, the logic sound enough for her. So she heaves herself off the stairs and follows Rebekah out to her Range Rover.

"I'm not _that_ vain, am I?" Elijah breaks the silence that had dawned on the room with a concerned expression.

* * *

Rebekah and Bonnie end up buying more than just formula milk, and stock up on a baby carrier, a stroller, a bassinet, more than a few dozen clothes, diapers, baby soap and lotion, and had a crib and rocking chair delivered. They both saw the logic in stocking up for the long run, because there was a good chance the baby was a supernatural and until they knew who left it at their doorstep and why, it was as good as theirs.

Caroline went into organizer-mode, delegating the task of assembling the crib and rocking chair to the boys for the sole purpose of having free arms that knew how to cradle a baby- which she'd googled immediately the girls left. If she was going to be a temporary mother, she might as well do it right. The baby had been successfully fed and burped and was residing on her left shoulder, head flat against her skin, softly drooling. Her senses picked up a foul smell and she reached for the shopping bags, heading upstairs to change the baby's diaper.

* * *

"So its a she," Rebekah repeated, swirling her wine around in her glass.

"Yup," Caroline confirmed. The baby was now nestled in a brand new bassinet, her cheeks rosy from the fuss she had put up when Caroline woke her to change her diaper. "And she's kind of the most adorable baby in the world, isn't she?" she mused, blue eyes roving over the sleeping child.

"She is quite charming." Elijah reluctantly offered. He had gotten a chance to hold her when Caroline was throwing away her dirty diaper and he had to admit, she had grown on him. Her tiny fists had grabbed his shirt with a strength he didn't know young ones possessed and blinked up at him miserably, eyes framed by lingering tears. He had dropped a kiss to her head, covered in faint little tufts of brown hair and rocked her, whispering a lullaby his mother sang to him when he was a boy.

"Not you too, Elijah." Klaus chastised. He downed his glass of scotch and uncapped the bottle for another fill.

"Oh hush Niklaus. You're on your own over there." Kol defended. He was sitting beside Caroline, so the baby was between them, and he had not gotten the chance to carry her yet, but he could not deny how sweet she looked, her little pink lips parted in her sleep and her tiny feet kicking at the air occasionally. It amazed him how tiny she was, how very... delicate.

"We still don't know where she came from. My spell didn't work. I don't know if she's human or not. It's like there's a sort of barrier around her. My magic can't get through and I don't know how it will affect her if I push." Bonnie sighed, flipping her grimoire closed.

"Then don't. She'll just stay with us until we figure this out. We'll call Marcel and ask if he knows anything, tell him to keep his ear on the ground and then we'll make a list of the people we even slightly suspect to be behind this. The note says 'present company included', which means whatever this is, its revenge for something that we all did." Caroline deducted, face twisted into a thoughtful frown.

_To be continued_


	10. Will You Not Marry Me?

"Caroline,"

"Klaus,"

"You know I love you, right?"

"Mhm," Caroline was only half-listening to her boyfriend, since she had been steadily on her way to falling asleep on his chest. It had been a tough week for her, most of her term papers were due, the last-minute topic changes her professors had dropped on her were not helping, and she was pretty sure she was the only person in her group that had two brain cells to rub together, which meant she was doing all the work because she was _not_ letting those idiots drop her perfect 4.0 GPA _again_. Plus, she was helping Angelique from Sociology plan her wedding to that neanderthal Freddie. Angelique had recruited her even though they weren't really that close because she had been to a few of the parties Caroline threw at the compound and she loved her style. Between that and school, she was swamped. She had pulled a few late nights at the library, so by Friday evening, she was bone-tired. Klaus, ever the doting boyfriend, had run her a nice hot bath, lavender-scented and all, and by the time she got out of it, her muscles had turned to mush. His words sounded like one continuous, British lullaby to her ears.

"Love, seriously." Klaus nudged her a little, running a hand down the leg she had thrown over both of his in an attempt to coax her to total consciousness.

Caroline's mouth quirked up at the term he had so clearly picked up from her and looked up at him lazily, only to find his jaw set and his face grave.

"What's wrong?" She asked instinctively, sitting up straight. She was conditioned to having a weekly life-threatening problem, and to being in danger all the time, so her body instinctively steeled in preparation for horrible news.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," Klaus soothed, running a hand down her back to calm her. He hated how akin she was to threats of danger looming ahead. She was such a bright and bubbly being, and she never deserved the tumultuous life she had lived in Mystic Falls.

"Klaus if there's something wrong, just tell me. I can handle it." Caroline insisted, not at all convinced that his strange behavior was not fueled by some catastrophe.

"Sweetheart. I'm being honest. Everything's fine. I just want you to know, I love you." He looked her dead in the eye, their way of confirming to each other that they were telling the truth. She searched the cerulean in his eyes for even a shadow of a lie and when she found none, she gave him a small smile and leaned back into his side.

"I love you too."

Silence took over their expansive bedroom, and Klaus counted three beats of Caroline's heart before speaking up.

"Even though I won't marry you?"

"What?"

"I heard you talking to whats-her-face about her upcoming nuptials to that nimrod and when she asked you if I'd ever make an honest woman out of you, you said no and rather wistfully, I might add. And while I realize that I have made my distaste for human traditions abundantly clear, the last thing I want is to be the cause of your misery-"

"Klaus, stop. I don't want to marry you either." Caroline interrupted hastily.

"Wait, what? Well, that seems a bit insulting."

"I didn't mean for it to come out like that," Caroline began, stifling a giggle at the genuinely hurt expression on his face. "I just don't want to marry you. I mean, it was really important to me when I was human, you know? Go to college, get a job, get married, kids, a cocker spaniel because golden retrievers are so cliché and a neighborhood house with a front porch swing and a barbecue in the backyard for Sundays. That was going to be my life. But then I died. And the thought of sticking to the plan is just... sad. I'm a different person with a different kind of family but with all the love I always wanted, we live in this big, kind of creepy mansion, I still went to college, I have a super-hot boyfriend who likes to think he's the King of New Orleans-"

"Hey!" He complained, nudging her knee with his.

"Which is fine, because I get to play Queen, I have Sam too, and he's adorable. And I get to have it all for eternity. So no, I didn't get your typical happily-ever-after, but I got my version of it. And I love it. And so, Niklaus Mikaelson, will you not marry me and spend the rest of our undead lives together?"

"I'd be honored."


	11. Early Birds

**Author's Note: I'm terribly sorry, I know I've been inactive for awhile, I've been having issues with the story a little. The timeline of the chapters isn't linear, more like bits and pieces and snippets of one story all jumbled up into one happy mess, but there's a huge event that happens in an upcoming chapter that isn't quite finished yet, which is a pain because the events that come after that huge event were pretty easy to write and I'd like to publish them, I just don't know if it would be confusing without the missing event. I apologize for how long-winded that was, I have an inability to shut up. Comments on my current predicament are very welcome, and without further ado; enjoy!**

* * *

"Love," Klaus urged, voice barely above a whisper, breath brushing against the skin of Caroline's collarbone.

"Mmm," Caroline groaned, turning in pestilence away from the source of her disturbance and settling back under the blankets. She was too sleepy, and frankly too smart, to even begin to wonder how he broke into her apartment without alerting her, or the bad ass witch that would surely give him an aneurysm if she knew he was there, slumbering in the next room.

"Sweetheart, come on." He tried again, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her back to him gently. Her blonde locks dragged lightly against the pillows and she sniffed, irritated at the strands that clung to her face. Left with no choice, she rolled over to face Klaus, eyes still screwed shut stubbornly.

"What?" She hissed at him, her voice not dripping with as much venom as she would like, more slumber and hoarseness, but she ignored that tiny detail in favor of pointedly jerking the covers up to under her chin.

"I want to show you something." Klaus' voice was soft in contrast, and she peeled open one eye.

"Does it have to be right this second?" She asked him, watching the glow of her nightstand lamp illuminate his features and give him an attractive countenance. The look on his face was not helping matters, he was gazing at her half in amusement and half in adoration, like the way she used to look at her grandmother's cat when she cuddled up to her on the couch even though she seemed to hate pretty much everyone else.

"Well, no, but I was excited to show it to you," Klaus' face adopted a sheepish expression, and just like that, her other eye was open. Now she was curious.

"Fine. Give me five minutes to get dressed." Caroline relented, throwing her blankets off herself and raising an eyebrow at him to move so she could get off her bed. He quirked a brow in response and she sighed, moving to straddle him with more force than necessary, making him puff out a breath of air and grin at her. She swung both her legs to one side, sliding down his ribs and onto her cold tile floor, cursing him the entire way to her closet.

* * *

Half an hour later, Klaus was leading a grumbling Caroline down the street, her tiny hand in his, absently dragging a finger over her daylight ring. Caroline pretended not to feel the shivers crawling up her spine, focusing instead on bouncing her guesses of their destination off the excited hybrid. It had only been a month since she drove out of Mystic Falls, windows down and the sun in the horizon with Bonnie in her front seat, shouting the lyrics to Miley Cyrus' _Party In The USA_, and their bags spilling out of the trunk, packed for a one-way trip to New Orleans. She had been on a couple of dates with Klaus, and they had all been wonderful, but she had been busy transferring credits from Whitmore to Tulane and setting up her and Bonnie's expensive new apartment across town, courtesy of their hosts, the Mikaelsons. Besides, she figured she would take it slow with him, she had already moved states for him, which she would deny until her dying breath if you asked her, she was sticking with the fact that she would not settle for a second-rate education when she was exposed to better choices. Caroline Forbes did not chase men, even if said men were gorgeous, thousand year old hybrids with eyes only for her and an accent to die for.

"Warehouse where you keep all the dead bodies of the witches you kill, lest they magically resurrect and plot your untimely death?" Caroline drawled sarcastically. Klaus stopped suddenly and turned back to her, a shocked how-did-you-know expression on his face. "Wait seriously?" Caroline screeched, only to punch him in his firm bicep when he began laughing at her reaction.

"You truly have no patience," he tutted, digging a bunch of old keys out of his pocket and unlocking the rusty padlock of a door hidden in the back alley of what looked like the French Quarter. Funny, Caroline thought to herself, this place looked eerily familiar. The large, black iron door swung open with a painful whine, making both supernaturals with enhanced hearing cringe. The corridor Klaus led her through was even darker than the streets, and Caroline held onto his hand tighter, unknowingly making Klaus' dimples indent his cheeks in the dark. They took a few more turns, went up a flight of stairs and finally came to a stop in a big, airy room. Now she knew why it was so familiar. Klaus had been renovating an ancient building in the Quarter to make into a gallery for his art, and it would be open to the public in less than a month now. She had found him there quite often, he was putting his heart and soul into the place, claimed to be making it for the upcoming artists in New Orleans that struggled to get their art featured somewhere worthwhile. When she prodded further about why, he just mumbled something about an artist at midnight painting demons on the street or something like that and she had let it go. It was a nice gesture, and she was not about to demean his charitable acts. She had even offered to paint it when the woodwork was done on the floor, and had been monitoring its slow but steady growth for awhile now. They were standing in what was to be the main gallery, a massive room with big windows to its sides, and one huge wall that had been torn down and replaced entirely with glass, to let light in. The room smelled of varnish and wood, there were empty cans lying on the floor, amidst tiny piles of sawdust, and nails and they had to step over broken building bricks to get to the center.

"Here it is," Klaus said to her excitedly, squeezing her hand. Caroline wondered if his age was making him senile, because she saw nothing but the same, unfinished room she had always seen.

"Here what is?"

"Give it a minute." He shushed her, pointing to the newly finished glass wall. The sun was about to rise over the horizon, and there were faint streaks of yellow and pink crossing the sky before them. Slowly, the sun came up, illuminating the glass from top going down. Caroline stood absolutely still, taking it all in, and that's when she saw it. The sun was highlighting a pattern ingrained in the glass with light strokes of paint, barely visible but very much present. As the sun rose higher, the picture became clearer and clearer. It was a silhouette of a woman, of her. She recognized the curve of her cheek and the curl of her eyelash from there, eyes roving over the accurate depiction of the voluminous curls she had a hard time taming, down to where they spilled over her shoulder, and the length of her neck. It was so beautiful. The sun made the whole thing glow, but the glass was tainted a shimmery yellow that made her hair look like it had little stars woven through it. Screw the jukebox and the pouring rain outside her window. This was by far the sweetest gesture she had ever seen. And it was for her. She spun on her bunny slipper clad heel to lunge herself at Klaus, squealing in glee. He caught her with a nervous chuckle, face buried in the scarf wrapped around her neck.

"I take it you like it?"

"Like it? Are you kidding me? It's perfect, Klaus, thank you so much." She gushed sincerely, shimmying back to the floor and beaming up at him happily. He returned her blinding smile with a satisfied smirk and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Worth the early wake up call?" He inquired, ducking his head down to nuzzle her throat playfully.

"Worth so much more." Caroline replied, tone soft and serious, tangling her fingers in his hair and pulling him up for a kiss, bathed in the morning sun. So maybe she had come to New Orleans for a little more than just an education.


	12. Phobias

**Author's Note: I'm very sorry about not posting in awhile. I've been trying to write chapters with more content and its been difficult, but I'm working on a couple right now, and they should be out soon. The next couple of chapters are not going to be Klaroline-centred, so I apologize for that in advance. As always, feedback would be very much appreciated, feel free to send me prompts and without further ado, happy reading lovelies!**

* * *

"Kol,"

"Hm?"

"Get me down, _now_."

"What's the magic word?"

"I'll fry your brain like an egg if you don't get me the hell down, you sadistic ass."

"Didn't quite hear a 'please' in there, darling. How about we try that again?"

Her eyes drifted over to where Elijah had his arms full, carrying groceries into the house. "I will kill him," she warned.

He let out a sigh. "Just don't get any blood on the driveway." Elijah had assessed the situation keenly when he exited his car. He was well aware that his youngest brother was capable of being absurdly childish, but he also knew that he would sooner dagger himself than let any harm come to the Bennett witch, so he decided to mind his own. Besides, he had a dinner to cook. So, with only a moment's regret of leaving the poor girl up there to deal with Kol's antics, he made his way into the house to begin preparing a meal.

"Looks like you're on your own there, darling." Kol remarked, crossing his arms and squinting up at her. He did not think she would have lasted this long, if he was being honest. He figured that either Caroline would get her, or Elijah just now, but he was rather pleased they did not come to her young, blonde friend had clearly been distracted by his brother poking fun at her fear of arachnids, and if he knew her well- which he liked to think he did, she probably deemed Bonnie's current predicament revenge for laughing at her phobia. His older brother seemed pacified by his culinary exploits, so it was just him and Bonnie.

She had been in Caroline's room, fixing a lid onto a cup that contained a spider, and laughing at her friend who was crouching in a corner, terrified. Never one to enjoy being the butt of a joke, Caroline had glared at Bonnie and made an offhand comment about how she had a crippling fear of heights. Kol and Klaus had been on their way to check on the girls- well, Klaus was, Kol was only going so he could amuse himself with whatever it was that made Caroline scream bloody murder. Upon their arrival, it was clear that the only threat to the girls had been neutralised, so to speak. Kol found himself intrigued by the witch's apparent fear of heights, and a devilish smirk crept onto his face.

So, Kol, being Kol, took it upon himself to grab the witch by the shoulders and vamp her up to the roof of their mansion, hoping to help her get rid of her fear, and maybe get a bit of entertainment out of watching the usually unperturbed witch squirm. It was a win-win situation really, but he found himself feeling a slight amount of guilt when she wrapped her arms around herself and her breathing quickened.

The girl in question let out a sigh and lowered herself to the clay tiles that covered the roof, careful not to move them around too much. She grit her teeth together in an attempt to hold back the wave of nausea that overcame her and focused her eyes on the leaves that had gathered on a patch near her foot, swearing with every breath that she would commit murder when she finally got off that damned roof.

A flash of worry passed over Kol's face when she was out of his vision, but she quickly stood up again and squared her shoulders.

"Kol, please get me down." Bonnie growled through her teeth.

"As nice as it is to hear you begging, darling, that's not quite how this works. You have to jump down." Kol responded, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun.

"Are you out of your f-"

"Before we go around yelling profanities, you should know I plan to catch you. I can't very well let you fall to your death, otherwise who would be around to irk Niklaus as much as you do?"

"I can't jump down, Kol." Bonnie admitted, her gaze travelling worriedly to the ground. Her voice had lost all its anger, but fright had replaced it.

It was odd for him to see her so scared. She had always been so brave and unfazed by the goings on of Mystic Falls. She never faltered, never cowered and never flinched. Not even when faced by his family. It was what he liked most about her. She had backbone to spare. So at this moment, when her body recoiled and her legs trembled beneath her, he felt almost guilty for depositing her up there in the first place.

"Sweetheart, its only about fifty feet. And I'll catch you, alright? Just close your eyes and jump." He coaxed her softly, willing her to move closer to the edge.

"What if you don't?" Bonnie asked, lower lip quivering. She just wanted to be on the ground already.

"Do you trust me?"

She managed to get the look of utter terror off her face long enough to fix him with an even stare. "You put me up here in the first place."

"Bonnie, do you trust me?" He asked again, ignoring her statement and looking up at her with a serious expression.

She contemplated his question for a minute, took note of the conviction in his voice, the set of his jaw, the softness of his eyes, and nodded once.

"Okay. Good. Now, sweetheart, just walk right up to the edge, that's it. Close your eyes." Bonnie followed his instructions carefully and took a deep breath. "I'm going to count to three, and then I want you to jump. One, two-" Kol watched with pleasant surprise as she stepped off the roof before his countdown was done, eyes screwed tightly shut, and letting out a sharp scream. Her legs flailed wildly in a desperate call for solid ground and her arms stretched out to her sides instinctively for purchase. He caught her easily, effectively silencing her. She waited a second for the air around her to settle, and when she opened her eyes, he was staring right at her, with a mix of awe and pride.

"Three." He whispered. She knew deep down, that he was only pretending that his motive was to torture her, but he was only trying to rid her of her fear the best way he knew how. And that made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. But she was nowhere near ready to dissect that right now, so she gave him a big, goofy grin instead.

Bonnie shuffled out of his arms quickly, her eyes lighting up with excitement from the adrenaline rush.

"I want to both never do that again and do that again right this second!" She yelled, shaking him by the shoulders. She felt like her body was buzzing with electricity, and she almost felt light-headed with the energy burst. She felt like she had been falling for five minutes, but she knew it had only been about three seconds. In the first, she'd worried that he wouldn't catch her. In the second, she enjoyed the rush, and in the third, she'd absolutely relished the feeling of falling, knowing that he'd be there to catch her. She'd felt free.

Kol's expression slowly morphed into amusement at her glee. "Well what is it going to be then?"

Bonnie circled him quickly, and tapped his back for him to crouch low enough for her to piggy back. "Don't you dare drop me."

"That's my girl."


End file.
